A popular bird hunting season starts up tomorrow in Iowa.

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, pheasant hunting season is October 26th through January 10th. DNR Conservation Officer Aron Arthur says there are several routes that DNR staff, including himself, go every year for two weeks in August to count how many pheasants they see at the same time everyday. He shares his thoughts from what he observed on the route he did that was just north of Jefferson.

“I counted the most pheasants I’d seen on that route. They said the statewide average was like 19 per route. So it’s a 30 mile route we run, I think it’s 20 miles per hour, and it’s statistically the same route every year going by different habitat, and then of course we’re counting the amount of pheasants on the road. My pheasant count made it to 63 and when the statewide average is 19, so it was fairly high. We’ll have a good population of pheasants here in Greene County.”   

According to the DNR, one article of clothing that has at least 50 percent blaze orange must be worn during pheasant hunting season.